Jelly Legs

My legs are tired today, a little sore but I'm sure by the end of the day I'll be feeling a lot better. I did more this weekend than I have in a while, and I finally got to ride outside again! Saturday I was out in West Bend for my friend Dave's trainer party and it was a great time. There were 8 riders there sweating it out for differing time periods over the 4 hours that we were there. I did 2 hours and 20 minutes, basically I had to stop because my ass started to hurt and I think everyone else was fizzling out as well and we were ready to be done. After a quick trip to check out the LBS, Pedal Moraine, we headed to Dave's to clean up before our trip to Riverside Brewery. Dave and I had a really good time at Riverside, they have really good beer and great food, probably not the kind of food I should've been eating but if you ever want a great Reuben sandwich, Riverside is the place to go. I took my 3 growlers up to get re-filled and came home with their Lager, Amber Ale, and Stout, I polished off half of the Lager already last night while watching the Super Bowl, it was perfect for watching the game and eating some taco dip. Before I consumed the taco dip and beer Sunday evening I got out for a nice ride outside for just under 3 hours in the afternoon. It was about 35 and sunny when I hit the roads, but the wind was between 15-20 mph which made it rough going heading out, but I had a decent tailwind heading home, of course the wind died down when I had it at my back. I am definitely out of shape, I need to get a lot of riding in between now and the time that some events start to hit my calendar. I'm obviously overweight so that's my key goal right now, lose about 15 pounds and also just to get in a lot of miles. I'm not so worried about intensity right now, I just need to ride and get my legs used to all this pedaling again. They didn't know what the hell happened after the riding I did this weekend, I haven't ridden that much in a while so they were sore but if I can just stick to my program I'll be good by the end of April most likely. By "good" I mean that I'll actually be able to go up a hill without puking in my mouth. I won't be racing though, I don't think I'll be anywhere near that "good". So anyways, the plan is to ride tonight, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday and Sunday. Tuesday I have to go to a Boy Scout thing for Xavier, and Friday is my normal day off. Hopefully the forecast will call for some good temps so that I can get outside again this weekend, I'm not even going to check though until Thursday, I don't want to get my hopes up until then. Well, that's it for now, until next time.

What Do You Know?

So there is this thing going around Facebook and other blogs where people are throwing out 25 things about themselves that other people wouldn't know, or are just interesting facts about themselves. I figured I'd do the same on my blog, but in order to protect my reputation in regards to all the crazy things I've done or to keep my vulnerabilities a secret (I watch HGTV), I'll post 25 things related only to my cycling endeavours. So here goes. Some are old, some are fairly new, some aren't all that interesting, but this seems to be the rage right now so I want to be cool too. In no particular order -

1. Back in the 90s I used to be able to do sets of 10 to 15 repeats up Johnson Rd. hill (State RR course).....in my big ring. Since my comeback to cycling 3 years ago, my best effort was only 3 repeats...in my small ring. And I almost threw up.

2. See above....I almost always threw up after about 8 repeats, but ALWAYS finished the rest of them.

3. I've raced against Lance Armstrong.

4. From the time I was 11 years old to 23 years old, I never, EVER, got a saddle sore riding my bike. In the last 3 years I've had about 15, and I have no clue why.

5. In my previous 12 years of riding I owned two saddles, a Selle San Marco Rolls, and a Selle San Marco Concor. In my last 3 years of riding I've owned 6 saddles. Saddles were better back then, now a 400 gram saddle just wouldn't cut it.

6. I had never walked up a hill on a bike until I came back 3 years ago. 6 months in to my comeback I had to walk up part of the Blue Mounds climb. I'll never walk up a hill again.

7. Unlike a lot of people, I have no allegiance or preference for a particular tire maker. I've used Vittoria, Specialized, Hutchinson, Michelin, Vredestein, Continental, Maxxis, and Matrix (an old Trek brand). I have 3 wheelsets right now that I use for training and racing, all 3 have different tires on them (Vittoria, Specialized, Hutchinson). The only brand I would never use again is Vredestein.

8. Since I've started cycling I've owned 4 steel bikes, 5 aluminum bikes, and 1 titanium bike. The only bike I've kept throughout the last 21 years is my 1988 Columbus SL Pinarello Treviso, it is THE most comfortable bike I've owned. I will keep it until I die.

9. A very well known teammate (I'll keep his identity secret) on my old Chevy team had an affinity for picking up discarded roadside porn. I learned this on my first ride with him when he stopped to pick up something on the road. He caught up to me and I noticed a rolled up magazine in his jersey pocket, I learned when we got back to his house that it was just another item in his already extensive collection. I have never picked up roadside porn.

10. I've broken 3 helmets in crashes where my head has hit the road, because of those helmets I have never broken my head. I will never ride without a helmet.

11. From the time I was 15 until I was 18 I didn't lose a mountain bike race in my age class, I quit mountain biking when I turned 18 to concentrate full time on road racing.

12. When I was 16 I won the overall of the Minooka mountain bike race in Waukesha beating a guy in his 20s who had won 4 straight races prior to that. I only won because my dad, who was a really good mountain bike racer as well, unclipped his foot when we were sprinting up the steep hill to the finish.

13. See above...In spite of winning my age group I never won the overall of a mountain bike race again after that Minooka race.

14. I raced the Chequamegon 40 only once right after I turned 18, I bonked only half way through and finished in like 4 hours. At the finish line I threw up mud and sand because it had rained most of the week prior and I had my mouth open a lot. I never raced a mountain bike again after this race.

15. From about 1991 to 1996 my training sustenance consisted of at least 2 cans of Chef Boy R-Dee Ravioli a day, every day of the week. It was the perfect combo of sodium, carbs and protein, and it was cheap. I calculated once that I had eaten approximately 3,600 cans of CBRD Ravioli in that timeframe. I haven't eaten a can of Ravioli since 1997.

16. My racing weight in 1991 was 145, in 1996 it was 155. In 2008 it was 182, in 2009 it will be 180....maybe.

17. In the last 3 years I've gained and lost at least 25 pounds each off season in spite of training through the winter. This year I've gained almost 30 pounds.

18. I have never ridden a Shimano equipped road bicycle. When shifting Campy levers you press a button down to shift down, you move the lever up to shift up. Shimano uses two levers that both move up, even to shift down. Campy makes more sense and I like it better.

19. My next bike will be carbon fiber, I've never had a carbon fiber bike and want one for no other reason than I've never had one. Hopefully I like carbon fiber.

20. On a training ride when I was about 20 years old I had an aluminum stem snap off at the handlebars and I crashed right in front of a truck that was behind me. The driver of the truck swerved in to oncoming traffic to avoid running me over. No cars hit me or each other, I prayed a lot that night.

21. I've gone 59mph down a hill on my bike, my legs shook uncontrollably at the bottom of the hill out of fear. My dad has gone 61mph down a hill. I need to go 62 some day.

22. The longest I've ridden on a bike in one day is 180 miles. This year I plan on doing 200 miles in one day.

23. At the height of my training and racing career I was doing 550-600 mile weeks. The end of some of those weeks had me crying at the end of rides from overtraining/depression/insanity. I did not enjoy riding my bike then....at all.

24. As a kid I used to ride my bike to town to get food, shop, and to get to friends' houses. As an adult I have never used my bike to commute, or to go in to town to get anything at all.

25. Before I joined Chevy I had the chance to go race in France, I couldn't afford the plane ticket though or the bills I had to pay. I still wonder how different my life would've been, would I be sitting in this cubicle right now? Would I be married? Not sure, but I have no regrets about it. I'm probably better off now with the path I took staying here.

Well, that's it, maybe I'll make some more lists in the future, but at least now I feel like I'm part of the Facebook and blogging mainstream. Yeah, I'm cool.

Warm

It's not really warm, but 17 degrees seemed mighty fine this afternoon compared to this past weekend. It's all relative I guess, 25 on Thursday and possibly even 30 on Saturday should seem like a heat wave. Other than that it will barely be past 20 degrees 8 of the next 10 days. On the bright side the average high by the end of February is 38 degrees, so we have that to look forward to.

A Case Of The Mondays

No, this isn't Office Space, but just a bad day for me today. I have a bit of a sinus thing going on, an infection maybe, but it's killing the right side of my head, my teeth hurt, my right eye hurts and a little bit of an earache. On top of that I woke up to a cold house this morning as my 1 year, 5 month old furnace decided to take a dump overnight and I had to have a tech come out to look at it. He did some diagnostics, said it needed some cleaning (seriously? It's just over a year old!) and charged me $140 for the 25 minute visit. The furnace worked just fine after he left, so I guess I have no complaints. Of course it's all controlled by a circuit board with nice green and red blinky lights so I'm sure it's set to stop at certain intervals, hmmm, a conspiracy? I'm sure it's not, but dang, only after a year it's already giving me trouble. Such is life.
Well, I was off work today, but I will head back tomorrow, I'm about to jump in bed, get some good rest and hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow. No weights today obviously but I'll try to hit the bike tomorrow, riding seems to be a good way to get rid of sinus congestion as it's always running when I'm riding inside so maybe that'll help tomorrow to get rid of some of this junk. Well, I'm tired, and not inspired to type right now, so more tomorrow I guess.

Race Schedule?

I put a question mark at the end of my title because it really is a question mark in terms of how the racing will pan out for me this year. I've really just started training so my season will not start right away, which is fine because I've managed to avoid a lot of trainer time in the basement by starting so late. As I've said in previous posts, I have no aspirations this year of being good, I just want to race in whatever shape I'm in, I'm not going to try to go all out and spend every minute of leisure time riding my bike. There is just way to much other stuff I want to do, and need to do (housework, right Lis?). So anyways, as my friend Dave said, it's best to declare something so that you have to follow through on it, well, I guess I don't have to but the 15 or so people that read this blog will know I didn't do it, so that helps to motivate me. So here is my tentative race schedule this year -

May 16th - Leland Gran Prix (very hilly road race), Masters3/4 probably since I'll still be in horrible shape. And fat. This is just a training race for the State RR.

May 31st - Sussex Crit, Masters 3/4, I'll still be slow.

June 6th - Backroads TT, Masters 1/2/3, since I can still be fat and do a decent TT

June 7th - State RR Championship, because it's in my old backyard, Masters 30+, no aspirations, just doing it for fun.

June 13th - State Crit Championship, Masters 30+, by this time I should be in decent shape, but still no aspirations, just for fun

June 20th-28th - Midwest Cycling Series, I'll pick one or two races from this, that's it, probably one of the weekend races depending upon the courses.

July 4th - UWW Road Race, Masters 30+, I enjoyed this course a couple of years ago assuming it's going to be the same

July 9th-26th - Superweek, one or two races for fun, probably Holy Hill if they still have that.

Well, that's it, should be a total of 8 races as of right now, that's plenty for me this year.

Football and Food

This weekend was definitely a good one, I worked out quite a bit, got some things done around the house (not that much though), and watched the football games while drinking a few beers and consuming some BW3 wings at my friend Jason's house.
The weekend started out well with a chilly but sunny start to some snowshoeing on Saturday morning. I was out at Valley View by 10:30 and the sun was out but going away quickly as the clouds moved in, and about 30 minutes into my first loop the flakes started to fall. Nothing major, just small flakes and I kept on chugging along for 90 minutes worth of snowshoeing. It was a great workout and I was pretty wiped when it was over, I really pushed the pace up hills and my heart was pounding quite a bit. I got back home and had some tea and ate some soup and a sandwich and then hit the bike. I rode the rollers for two hours and my legs were pretty sore to start with, but I watched a bit of the 2006 Giro and then some random shows and forgot all about my sore legs. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing with the family after a nice chinese dinner of Sesame Chicken and Szechuan Pork.
I mixed it up a little bit on Sunday and skipped the snowshoeing since my feet hurt a bit from the day before and after eating a nice 4 egg omelet and some toast I hit the rollers for an hour and then switched it over to the trainer for another hour. I was happy to get in some quality time on the bike for once and ended the weekend feeling a lot better about my fitness than I did going in to it. I plan to keep up the same weekend routine for the next few weeks, lots of snowshoeing and a few hours of riding, hopefully some of it outside but this damn snow has to stop coming down.
After getting my ride in I did some work around the house; a bit of laundry, roof raking, and some vacuuming. Once that was all done I got ready and headed over to my friend Jason's house to watch the end of the NFC game and then we consumed a few beers and ate some wings while watching the AFC game. I have to say that the Cardinals are a big surprise, I would've never picked them to make the Super Bowl this year, go figure. Pittsburgh was one of my AFC favorites going in to the year but I just didn't think they'd make it all the way, but good for them and hopefully the game is a good one. It will be Arizona's offense against the Steeler D, and we all know how the offense vs. defense matchups have turned out in recent Super Bowl's, the D seems to win every time. Hopefully it's not a blowout.
As for this week, I have to work late tonight, probably until 7:30 or 8:00 and then I'll just go home and crash I'm sure after 12 hours at work. That means no weights tonight which has been the routine, and probably no bike ride either as I won't be eating dinner until 8:30ish I'm guessing. I'll be riding at least an hour each day the rest of the week, some days will be 90 minutes and will also do weights on Wednesday and Friday. I'm feeling good on the bike again so I'm looking forward to the workouts.
The WCA meeting was yesterday also so hopefully we'll have the schedule soon, last year it came out on February 1st, so I'm guessing we'll have it at about the same time this year. Right now I'm only planning on 3 or 4 races for the year, nothing until at least June, and then I'll decide on what I'm doing the rest of the year depending on how those races go. After the lengthy break I had in '08 and the not so great start to this year, in which I've basically started riding consistently last week, I'm not aspiring to do anything great in the races, I just want to compete for the fun of it. If I can stick to the plan, enjoy riding this year, get back on track 100%, then in 2010 I'll be looking to do a full schedule. I enjoyed racing in 2006 and 2007, last year just wasn't meant to be with other stuff going on, but hopefully I'll come back full force by the end of this year and really rock next year.
Well, that's enough for now, until next time.

Turtle

Damn it's freakin' cold out, -7 right now, about -30 with wind chill. Oh well, I'm inside all the time anyways so it really only sucks when I have to take the dog out. I'm not riding outside or anything and can't snowshoe during the week so it's not really affecting me all that much. It looks like it's going to warm up to the lower to mid 20s by Saturday and Sunday so that's all that counts for me. I'll be snowshoeing at 10:30a.m Saturday morning at Valley View Park in New Berlin if anyone has snowshoes and wants a good workout. Meet at the Small Rd. parking lot. Anyways, I plan to do that Saturday and maybe Sunday but I'll probably do some longer trainer riding on Sunday and skip the snowshoes. This year is trending a lot like last year so far, hopefully the snow doesn't stick around well in to April. I'd really like to get outside on the bike without full arctic gear on. Just found out today that I'll be heading to Florida for work March 4th through the 8th, that'll be a nice reprieve from the cold weather here. I'm looking forward to it already.

In other news, I'm trying to start a community cycling resource for New Berlin and any of the surrounding communities, namely Hales Corners, Brookfield, West Allis, Waukesha, Muskego, Big Bend....and that's probably about the extent of the range I guess. It's mainly for New Berlin but since I ride a lot in Whitnall Park and out towards the Waukesha and Muskego area I figured that information for training rides and races, etc. would be pertinent for those areas as well. Basically the site has a calendar of events for future training rides and group rides in the area (once the weather gets warm and they actually start), and I'll post WCA events and pretty much anything bike related I can find. The site also has a forum to discuss any of the rides or events and also where people can talk about training tips, bike maintenance, nutrition, or whatever they want. Photos and videos can be added, members can maintain their own blog, and manage their own page. You can visit the site at newberlincycling.com. Check it out and sign up.

A Good Winter Day.....

....For some snowshoeing. I got up this morning and had some oatmeal and espresso and headed out the door to Valley View Park for two loops of the trails. It was not a bad morning, temps were in the mid 20s, it was cloudy but not breezy, and I was bundled up so I was feeling good. I'm fairly out of shape so 90 minutes on the snowshoes was more than enough for me, I was already better than the last time I went though and could have completed another quarter of a loop more in the same time if I wanted. No bike ride today, feet are sore from being on them more then I'm used to so tomorrow will be a two-session bike day and I will take the day off from snowshoeing. I'll do a roller ride in the morning and then a trainer ride in the afternoon or evening tomorrow while watching the 2006 Giro, a dominating performance by Basso, hopefully pre EPO/CERA/Blood doping. I have to also say I feel bad for my parents down in Burlington, only about 35 minutes away but in the last two days they got about a foot of snow and I only got about 3 inches, it's amazing how only a 25-30 mile difference can have such a disparity in the snowfall. Good for me though, too bad for them.


STARTING THE DAY OFF RIGHT!

NO SKIING TODAY, SNOWSHOES BABY!

This And That.....

We are in the doldrums of winter now, heavily entrenched in cold temperatures and random snow showers, the pattern of snow every other day has abated for now. We are supposed to get 4-6 inches of snow tomorrow and then the temps are going to dip to a sack-shriveling high of Zero on Tuesday with a low of minus Five. Riding will be near impossible this weekend with highs of 24 on Saturday and 22 on Sunday along with a chance of snow, but snowshoeing is not wind or temperature dependent as it IS meant to be done in the snow and outside, so I'll be hitting the trails both days. After some morning trail sessions I'll hit the trainer and rollers in the afternoon both days, but not likely for all that long, maybe 90 minutes to 2 hours each day. There is only something like 57 days until March 1st, 58 days until Daylight Savings time, that actually doesn't seem like all that far, and those dates are like a turning point for me in enhancing my mood as Spring seems close at that point and with it the nicer weather. I'm sick of the cold and snow already, but everyone has to deal with it and I will too, I can still be sour about it though....except when I'm snowshoeing, I do enjoy that. Not much other news of late or on the horizon, pretty much just waiting for some good riding weather, namely any day that doesn't have snow or isn't below 25 degrees. Oh yeah, as far as biomechanical deficiencies, I'm doing pretty good now since I've lowered my seat and moved it forward a bit, no leg rub and I'm feeling pretty straight. My left leg still tracks in a bit towards the frame but not nearly as bad as before. I'm not stressing about it anymore so basically that is good enough for me regardless of whether I feel perfect anymore, I don't think anyone ever feels "perfect" on the bike, we just get as comfortable as possible and I'm there right now.

I guess since the new year has started I better make some declarations about what I want to do this year, or think that I want to do, if that makes sense....maybe I won't do everything and maybe my goals will change but it's good to have a starting point so I've listed a few things below.



(Not in order of importance, just a random order)



1. Do a 200 mile solo ride in 11 hours or less

2. Do the MS150 - because it's for a good cause and it's not a race

3. Ride up Blue Mounds 5 times in one training ride

4. Be in good enough shape to finish the State RR Championship

5. Ride with my wife at least once a week

6. Maintain my weight at a steady 180-185, see previous post about racing weight

7. Do an overnight ride on the Glacial Drumlin Trail to Madison and back

8. Finish in the top 10 of at least one Masters 1/2/3 WI Cup race

9. Start a weekly group training ride out of New Berlin in the style of the Doc Ride or Centennial Ride - but not at the same time as either of those

10. Stay upright, stay healthy and enjoy my rides - yeah, that's 3 but encompassed in one goal.

Well, I suppose 10 is enough for now, I don't want to get too ambitious and fail miserably in attaining all of them.

Starting The New Year Right

First ride of the year on the first day of the year......................

Snowshoeing....Without The Snow...and the Snowshoes

Yesterday I decided to finally get off my butt and do some exercise and with the heavy winds it really wasn't in the cards for me to try to jump on the bike and head outside. So I decided to snowshoe instead and knew that it might be difficult with the snow melt that we had Friday and Saturday but figured I'd give it a whirl anyways. I headed over to the park by my house where there are some nice trails in the woods and thought that maybe there'd be enough snow in the woods to actually be able to use the snowshoes. Well, it turned out I was half right as I made my way around for the first loop, there was enough snow in only some spots but for the most part the path was either completely iced over or pretty barren as far as snow goes. I decided to hoof it without the snowshoes and just laced up the hiking boots and gatorz and took off in to the woods. I was the only person in the whole park so it was a wonderful 90 minute jaunt to take in the serenity of the day without other human noise to muck it up. My only other visitor on the path was a stray Doberman Pinscher that was walking on the path ahead of me. He did not have an owner with him, he was basically enjoying the day walking through the woods by himself. I stopped in my tracks when I saw him and let him get ahead of me a bit but I did eventually follow him and kept my distance before he turned off towards some houses about a mile down the trail. He was a big boy and no doubt I would've been seen as either a play companion or lunch if he would've seen me. I had my poles with me so I was ready to defend myself if needed, thankfully it didn't come to that. The only other real adventure of the day was when I had to traverse a river crossing, it was quite dangerous, I almost got my feet wet when I hopped over it, it was nearly a rapids to say the least.


THE RAPIDS - Don't try this at home kids!!!




SOME SNOW - It was still pretty hard packed though

NEW BERLIN ICE FLATS - I needed my poles to keep me from slipping out

Not A Lot Going On

Just thought I'd give an update even though I really have nothing to say, it's been a crappy winter, about the same as last year with the snow. No riding of late, basically been sitting on my butt getting fatter again. I hope to get out and snowshoe this weekend but it will be a busy weekend getting the house ready for the wife's family on Christmas Eve. That's about it for now, barely worth the effort to type it but figured I would anyways. Happy Holidays.

Winter Days Are Here Again

Well, winter weather is certainly here to stay, no road riding on the horizon any time soon. It might be good enough to get the mountain bike out after the roads are cleared but the forecast is calling for more snow later in the week, and part of the weekend. That means that I get to take out the snowshoes this weekend and hit the local trails for the first time since probably February or early March. I'm excited to get out in the woods and enjoy the solitude for an hour or two, last year I was almost always the only one out there, it was great. Maybe I can get my wife out there this weekend, we have a busy weekend planned with some cleaning for X-mas, but I'm sure we can spare the time. Other than that, I've been hitting the weights on a regular basis, although I missed two days in the last two weeks due to working late and then just not feeling it one day. I'm actually feeling stronger with the weights this year than I was last year at this time, I'm about 10lbs higher for each exercise and it feels noticeably easier. I rode the rollers last night and will be riding again tonight after shoveling, which looks like it's going to suck as the snow that is coming down is of the wet, heavy variety. If I don't throw my back out I'll do just an hour on the rollers again and watch more of stage 13 of Le Tour since I started it last night, and I DVRed the whole 5 hours of coverage so I have enough to ride most of the week just watching one stage. That's about it for now, it's Potluck Lunch today at work so I've got wings, chili, BBQ, roast beef, cheese and sausage, chips, soda, etc. to munch on today, I'll try to keep the fat intake to a minimum but it will be difficult.

Trainer Party Pics

THE DAY'S REWARD

Turkey Day

Not much to report right now, ready to eat lots of food tomorrow, and bike at some point too, maybe. Basically just ready to eat lots for sure. Bought some Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale and Point's St. Benedicts Winter Ale, will drink that as well. Yum.

Um, Is It Spring Yet?

How about that little snowfall we had yesterday, I've never seen .20 inches of snow cause so much trouble as it did last night. My drive home took 60 minutes, it's normally 15. I passed 3 accidents and countless cars that couldn't get up a 3% grade because it was too slippery. Luckily the 4WD Xterra had no problem going up hills, unfortunately I had trouble going down them though as no amount of 4WD was stopping anyone heading downhill. I had to lay on my horn once so that the guy in front of me knew I wasn't stopping as I was sliding downhill towards him. He took off just in time as I finally slid to a stop right where he had been. Way too much fun for me, can't say I want to do that anytime again soon.
Anyways, if you've read my previous posts the last week or so you've seen that my body is constantly adapting to my position fixes and screwing itself up as fast as I can fix it. I thought I had the problem resolved with some stretching and position changes but my body quickly figured out how to circumvent my fixes and get itself all screwed up again. I rode about 3 times in my new position and it felt pretty good, but not great, at least I wasn't rubbing the seatpost for the most part. I took two days off the bike and when I got back on this past weekend my leg was rubbing again. I never took the bike off the trainer, didn't move it, no changes at all. So how could it work fine one day, then a couple days later I was back to rubbing on the seatpost? Well, who knows I guess, that's what I've been having trouble explaining. It seems every time I think I'm good, things go wrong again a short time later. So, this weekend after trying to ride multiple times I finally did some more position changes and got pretty close to square on the bike again. I will be back to hittin' the trainer again tonight and we'll see how I feel. I'm hoping as long as I keep up my stretching and concentrate on what my body is trying to do, that I can overcome whatever structural issues come up again. Basically it's back to square one again, I've kind of been on and off the bike a bit the last couple of weeks so it's time to try to get on a regular program and make sure I stick to it as long as I have no issues. Normally I'd be doing more hours on the bike and things like Muscle Tension intervals and FastPedals, and Tempo work already, but for now I'll just be concentrating on riding and working on my form for the next month or two. I was off quite a bit this summer so it's back to the basics. I don't feel the need to catch up to everyone because I'm not really looking to race heavily like I was hoping to this past year, I may do 3-5 races next year, I don't really see myself being able to do much more than that since I probably won't start until the 3rd or 4th race of the year. I'm going to do probably the two important ones just for fun, the State RR and the State Crit and then not really sure what else, it's all up in the air. So anyways, that's the tentative plan, and of course I can tell you with 100% certainty that it will change, that's how things usually go.

Status Quo

Well, not much has been going on since Monday, it's been pretty status quo. This is the time of the year where the training gets pretty monotonous, the weather gets crappy and there isn't much to talk about. There are no road rides to describe during the week since I'm always in my basement, the view is always the same. The weather has been crap all week, basically a constant drizzle, mid 40s, typical November weather. I've been in the weight room twice this week and doing the weight workouts feels really good, no complaints from the muscles. I was a little sore the first day and after that I've felt really good every time I've lifted. I'll be doing a few more weeks of lighter weight, high reps and then I'll move up to a higher weight, medium number of reps, and then finally I'll do power work later in the winter. It's good to have Dave up in the weight room with me, I get to talk bike stuff the whole time and it's great motivation to get my butt up there, some days I might have just gone home if it was just me. Hopefully having me there gives him the same motivation, from our conversations I'm pretty sure it does.
As far as riding goes, I'll be riding tonight and tomorrow and both days this weekend as well, although riding inside or outside is yet to be determined. Temps in the mid-30s and a slight chance of snow and rain are in the forecast, seems riding outside is doable at this point. I'll decide tomorrow though and plan my routes out appropriately tomorrow night to get the most out of routes that are a bit sheltered from the cold and wind. I'm thinking this weather will keep most people out of a park by my house that has some trails so some mountain biking might be in order for fun.
I know I have to do a beer review tonight or tomorrow, it's been too long, I'll be drinking a beer tonight so I'll have something to throw on the blog for your reading pleasure, or to bore you even more. Either way. Well, that's it for now, until next time......

1+1+1=3

You're looking at the title and probably thinking, wow Brian, you are really smart, you can add. Uh-huh, I'm practically a genius. Actually the numbers refer to how I had to break down my training this weekend so as not to die from trainer-induced boredom. I decided I just couldn't ride on the trainer for more than an hour at a time yet for a couple reasons, one is that it's really boring, and two is that I needed to get some things done during the day this weekend. I had to split my workouts to be able to get in a full 3 hours yet accomplish some yard work and house work as well and the best way to do that was to ride once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and then once again at night. I did One-Legged pedaling in the morning, mainly for the benefit of my weaker left leg which is part of the cause of some of the biomechanical issues I've been having. I basically did a 15 minute warm up and then did 5 minutes on, and 5 minutes off for the remainder of the ride. In the afternoon I did Muscle Tension intervals, for these my reps increase to 10 minutes on and then 10 off with only a 5 minute warmup. I did these in the 53x13 at about 55 rpm and really concentrated on pulling through the whole pedal stroke, it was definitely a good workout. My night ride was a nice recovery type ride just to clean out the legs from the two workouts earlier in the day and to burn a few calories that I desperately need to get rid of.
The rides felt pretty good actually and mainly because I did a couple things to help out the issues I've been having. One is that I changed my position on the bike to something that opens my hip angle a bit more and put one more Lemond Wedge in my left shoe, and two is that I've been very diligent in doing my stretching and yoga. The stretching has been a huge help, my hamstrings, hip flexors, and back muscles were super tight and I've cranked the heck out of them in the last week. The yoga then helps strengthen my core and helps with some added flexibility. I've noticed the difference on the bike and have significantly improved the clearance on my left leg from the seatpost, I can actually ride without rubbing my shorts against the post now. I'll definitely be keeping up the routine of 30-45 minutes of stretching and 30 minutes of yoga every night for the foreseeable future, it doesn't take a lot of time and the benefits are well worth it. If it prevents me from going crazy on the bike, then why not. So, that means that I'll be back on the trainer for this week after taking last week off the bike to get back on the straight and narrow (literally). The weather is getting worse but like I said in my previous post, if it's not raining or snowing hard then I'll be out on the weekends. Eventually when the bad times come (that would mean snow), then I'll get back out and do some snowshoeing which I had a lot of fun doing last winter. That's it for the training stuff for now....
......Not much else going on, I did some bathroom work this weekend as well. Basically I'm re-doing the walls in our half bath because the previous owner had so many patches and paint splatters and some crazy popcorn type paint on one wall that they needed to just be completely re-done. I've got one more wall to go but that one is going to be tough, it's the wall with the sink, built in cabinet and the toilet, so it won't be easy to work around. After I'm done I'll re-paint it all, put in new molding, and it will look brand new.
I also finally replenished my beer stock this weekend with a Sam Adams Winter Variety pack which includes the standard Boston Lager, and also the Winter Lager, Cranberry Lambic, the Holiday Porter, the Cream Stout, and the Fezziwig Ale. All of them are good beers and now that I have something to review I'll put up a couple of reviews this week.
That's it for now, until next time........

Slow Burn

Slow burn, that's what it feels like to do yoga and the deep stretching that I did last night. It's not like a sprint on the bike or intervals where all of a sudden your legs and lungs burn, it's a deep, slow ache as the muscles stretch, and during yoga as I move in to the different positions. I really needed to get back on track with my core work and stretching as I've been neglecting that of late. I'm taking a few days off the bike while I repeat some of my physical therapy exercises that I was doing back in the beginning of the year. I need to stretch out my hip flexors, my hamstrings, and strengthen my core a lot more. I was pretty loose in the Spring after PT but have since tightened up again and I feel it when I'm on the trainer since my bike has no lateral movement. On the road I can compensate for my tightness by leaning my bike, sorta like I'm riding in a major crosswind, my bike is angled relative to the road. I can't compensate for that on the trainer so it's difficult to ride comfortably. Soooo, back to basics with the stretching and then I can get back on the bike hopefully tomorrow or Saturday once I feel a little better about the tightness I'm having. Tonight I'll be doing the same thing as yesterday, about an hour of stretching, and then 30-45 minutes of yoga. The yoga helped to relax me as well last night and I think I slept better than I have in a while.
This weekend looks like crap right now so we'll see what the plans are after I check the forecast again tomorrow night. I worked on the Pinarello last night to get that ready in case I feel like riding a bit in the rain on the road, and I'll get the SS ready tomorrow in case I feel like riding on some trails near my house. I could care less about the colder temps, I'll ride down in to the 20s, but I don't want to ride if it's pouring and I could get wet AND cold, that's a recipe for sickness for me. We'll see how much it's going to rain and then go from there, either it will be a decent weekend in the cold outdoors or if it rains too much then I'll swap between the rollers and trainer depending on how my muscles feel. Either way tomorrow will be weights as well after work, doing all lower body stuff, lots of reps with lighter weight.
I know I haven't posted a beer review in a while, I'm actually out of beer right now so I need to make a run this weekend, especially if it's cold. I'll be inside and will be working on the house, so might as well have a beer or six. ....or more. Anyways, that's it for now, until next time.......

More Beer, Less Biking

That is what's in the works. I'm going to put my off-season trainer riding on hold for now until I figure out my asymmetry issue that has plagued me since I started riding again in 2006. I still can't ride the bike without rubbing my left leg against the seatpost, I've worn completely through two pairs of short legs riding this way and deformed the left side of two saddles in two years. I'm done riding until I can figure that out, I'm just completely perplexed, it's really freakin' pissing me off. More beer drinking for now I guess, less riding.



Seriously, WTF???!!!!

Let The Sun Shine Down...

...on me today. There was supposed to be a bit of rain in the forecast today and when I checked the radar this morning after I woke up there were spots of rain out west and a bit north of us. I figured I'd do some yard work for an hour or two and then check again to see how close it was going to get by 11:00 or so. I picked up some leaves for a bit, mainly cleaning them from out of my bushes and flower gardens and then checked the radar again. It was looking pretty good and right around 11:30ish the sun actually came out, but of course I had planned on watching the Packer game at noon to see if they could beat the Titans. It was a bit of a conundrum but I decided that a ride in the sun outweighed the Packers today, this could be my last chance for a sunny ride in 50-something weather, although I really, really hope not. I decided to keep it short today though, only 2 hours, for two reasons; one, I decided to do one hour of stretching and calisthenics, and one hour of yoga this evening as well as the ride, and two, I rode 4 hours yesterday and my butt is sore. I did a pretty flat route from New Berlin to Big Bend then to Waukesha and back to New Berlin. No other bikers out there today and I only saw one runner as well, everyone was either finishing their end-of-year yard work or inside watching the Packer game. So where were you all? Anyways, it was a great ride, I felt really good, the weather was nice and the only problem was my previously mentioned sore butt. Tonight I'm going to do some stretching, crunches, leg lifts, push ups, and then an hour of yoga as well. I'll be starting that at about 7:00 and then after that it will be close to bed time. My boss is out Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday so I have a feeling the first part of the week will be a little hectic, I better rest up so I'm not crabby at everyone when I'm getting hit from all directions. Well, no pictures today, that's it for now, until next time......

How Many?

How many days do we have left like today, it wasn't exactly the warmest but it is November 1st, I'll take mid-50s and sunny any day of November. I'm not going to do a full re-cap right now because it's dinner time and I'm really hungry but I did 4 hours today from New Berlin to Waukesha back to New Berlin and then went on the Oak Leaf trail to Franklin and back home to New Berlin. It was a great ride, here are some pics for now, more to come later.

Ready To Embark

Oak Leaf Trail Bridge
Fox River Trail

I Feel....

....a vacation day coming on tomorrow. The weather has been kind of crappy of late but I've been stuck at work anyways during the day so what does it matter really I guess. It looks like tomorrow is supposed to be really nice though so I've decided to take a vacation day to get in a long ride. Right now a long ride for me is 4 hours, anything more than that right now and I'd keel over, that's about my max at the moment. After my ride I'll be showering and changing quickly to go to lunch and drink some beer with my friend Jason, that should make for a nice afternoon to relax my body after the ride. Not the greatest recovery for a longer ride but beer has carbs in it so I'll be replenishing my glycogen stores, um, I think. Hopefully we have as good a time as our last endeavour to Ray & Dots and Bennos, this time we won't drink the new Schlitz though, that stuff is nasty. So, I'm looking forward to a good day, it's a good way to celebrate Halloween and close out October.
As far as weights and bike training go, I forgot I had to work late last night and even though I brought all my workout clothes I had to fore go my lifting and head home. I didn't want to be eating dinner at 7:30 so I decided to just lift tonight instead and then obviously I'll skip it tomorrow since I won't be at work to utilize the facilities. Monday it will be back to the normal lifting program, I hope. I rode the rollers last night as well, another 75 minutes, and I felt pretty good. I watched about 45 minutes of a lame movie, "Stuck", about someone being hit by a car and then left in the windshield for dead while I was riding but I had to turn it off because it sucked so bad, I wouldn't recommend renting it. Other than that, the weekend weather looks pretty good although Sunday could be iffy for a little rain so hopefully I'll get a lot more yard work done and the plan is to do about 3 hours each on Saturday and Sunday on the bike as well. DST ends on Sunday as well and I'm not looking forward to the extended darkness, I'm going to have to start tanning or something to get my fix of radiation. That's it for now, until next time.........

Sore Start

Well, yesterday was the first day of weight work for the off-season and I have to say I was pretty sore today. I guess underneath my fat I actually have abs because they hurt today, my legs were pretty sore as well but after getting the blood flowing on the trainer tonight they are doing much better. I'll be back to hitting the weights tomorrow, I'll do different muscle groups tomorrow, more upper body and core stuff, and then will go back to the lower body on Friday again. Tonight was just a short ride on the trainer, only 75 minutes but it was more than enough for me since the first few rides in the basement are always the hardest. Jeez I hate riding inside. Anyways, not much else to report, here are a few pics of my newly cleaned bike below. A clean bike is a happy bike.......

Yardwork, Yardwork, and More Yardwork

Yeah, that was the theme for the weekend. The forecast called for a chance of snow showers overnight and possibly today, but thankfully I haven't see anything resembling snow yet. When I saw the forecast on Friday I knew that it was time for me to get some remaining yard projects done before the weather really takes a turn for the worst, the high is only supposed to be 39 today for cryin' out loud. So I made my list and set about finishing as much as I could over the weekend. Saturday I didn't accomplish as much as I had hoped, I think a combination of the wind and the persistent clouds made it difficult to get motivated. I slept in a little bit and then did some things around the house and then took a nap, it's hard work doing nothing you know. After waking up I did some more cleaning around the house and then basically called it a day, my motivation was completely lacking so I said, "there's always tomorrow". I think the onset of SAD is to blame for my dismal attitude, that would be Seasonal Affective Disorder, I think I get that at the onset of the first cold days of the Fall, I have some ideas to combat though this year, hopefully they work. Anyways, Sunday was a new day and I was full of energy (probably from the 13 hours of sleep) and the sun was actually out although it was still windy and a little chilly. I think the sun provided the motivation I needed to get out and I took full advantage of it until it finally set just before 6:00. I cleared the lawn of all those stinking leaves, I really wish they would have all blown off the trees yesterday but I still have quite a few trees yet that have to get rid of them so there will be at least another week or two of raking. I also mowed my lawn again with the push mower, that always takes about two hours as my lawn is a decent size. After that I decided to work on splitting logs and after maybe an hour and 50 or so logs I decided that my arms and shoulders couldn't take it any more. Cyclists are built well in the lower body, our upper body isn't meant for all this manual labor and I'm feeling it today, my arms are hurtin'. After splitting the logs I stacked them all up in front of the house for easy access once we start using the fireplace, I used the wheelbarrow to move them so that really wasn't all that much work. Once the logs were stacked I decided to do some transplanting of my Iris bulbs to extend the flower bed on the side of my house. I think I hacked a few of the bulbs so hopefully they recover and come up in the Spring. A new, thin layer of top soil and compost was laid over all the Irises and they are now set for the winter. The next and last project of the day was to take some lawn edging that has been sitting in my garage for about two months and dig a little trench and put that around the shrubs and flowers surround my garage. An hour later I was all done with that and called it a day as it was time for some dinner. I had thought about riding the trainer but I was too sore for that so decided to do some yearly maintenance on the Cannondale. I replaced the brake and shifter cables, took off the bottle cages and cleaned up the 4 or 5 layers of Accelerade that had built up over the year, gave the bike a good washing and put on some new bar tape. I still need to replace the chain and clean the cassettes but I'll do that more towards the beginning of the new year as this chain still has a little bit of life yet, very little, but enough to get me to January. I will be doing maintenance on the Pinarello (my road bike with cross tires) this week as well as that will be my winter bike. I didn't use that much last year so that will just get some cable cleaning and lubing, a chain cleaning and a good washing. The Specialized will get worked on next week and that needs quite a few things done to get it back to riding shape, basically it was used this year as a parts bike for my Cannondale, so a few things need to be replaced with other spare parts that I have laying around. I'll also get the SS all lubed up next week and ready to ride as well as it will be taken out in the rain and snow and I'm sure that crap is coming soon. That's about it for now, the plan is to start weight work tonight and do that Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until about the end of March. I'll also be hitting the trainer on a regular basis now, basically I'll try to stick to a more concrete plan instead of just riding when I feel like it. It's time to get off my fat butt and get going again, I'm not looking to lose a ton of weight this off-season, but 198 lbs. won't cut it either. Well, that's it for now, until next time.........

Too Much Beer....

.....and not enough biking. That was the theme last night as we had a celebration at Chammps for work and pretty much my whole evening was spent consuming Guinness and pulled pork sandwiches, oh yeah, chicken wings too. It was a good evening spent with co-workers in a nice relaxed atmosphere, of course everyone is relaxed because they are consuming lots of booze right? Definitely. It was all free, all night, which a lot of people took advantage of to the fullest. Loaded up food plates and bottomless glasses were the norm as I looked around the restaurant. I enjoy people watching at these events because when you get co-workers out of their comfort zone in the cubicles or get to see what they actually wear when they don't have to wear the business outfit, it's pretty amusing. I was drinking soda the second half of the evening so when others were starting to slur their words I was getting sobered up, that was the best part of the evening. "I shink I'd haf tooooo mush to drink, but dish ish reallllly a goot time"....um yeah, that line made me laugh when it came out of the mouth of an inebriated co-worker. Anyways, good times all around. So having done that I obviously didn't bike last night which is fine as I'll make it up tonight and this weekend although not sure how much I'll ride outside as the forecast is not looking all that great. It might be time to get out the SS and the rain gear for some long rides this weekend. Let's just hope it doesn't snow.

Leinie's Fireside Nut Brown.....

....is a really good beer, although a bit tame it really does the trick as a seasonal beer. I picked up a 6 pack the other day and it was money well spent. I was looking for something a little different as I normally get a brand of Oktoberfest beer this time of year, normally Sprecher, and when I saw this I knew I had to give it a try. Here is the link to check out the description yourself but I'll pretty much post all the info from their site below. The beer, a Lager, is a version of an English-style nut brown with English two-row malts. Alcohol content is pretty low at 4.9% but that just means you get to drink a lot more of them before you have to cut yourself off. The color is amber (no, not brown) although it is on the darker side of Amber, and as soon as you start pouring the smells just start opening up from the beer and then as you reach the top you get a nice head that lasts just long enough to get in a good sip or two. The smell is overwhelmingly roasted malt and caramel/chocolate, and a bit of hazelnut. The taste, don't be surprised, hits with a nutty flavor first and then the caramel and chocolate come right behind, a very smooth and satisfying combination. This is an easy drinking beer, meaning for me it's easy to drink one right after another, it goes down sooooo smooth and the tastes linger in your mouth calling for more within minutes, make that seconds, of finishing the first glass. It's a beer that Leinies recommends serving chilled at 45 degrees but as a comfort beer that's too cold for me, especially if you do as intended and sit by a fire, you want to be warm right? I poured my first at 55 degrees in to a room temp glass and it was more satisfying than the second one that I poured at the cooler recommended temperature. The colder temperature takes something away from the beer in my opinion, I didn't get the robust flavor that I had in the first pour, it was too crisp for me to really take in the flavors. Go ahead and try out different temperatures for yourself, I'm going to go higher than what they recommend to satisfy my own tastes, see what works for yourself, it never hurts to experiment. All in all, this is a solid 3 mug beer that you will not be disappointed with, another score for Leinies.

Oh yeah, I rode on the trainer tonight as well, but that's boring stuff, nothing special, just 75 minutes to keep the legs moving.

Weekend Re-cap

My weekend was pretty uneventful, I guess now that it's turning colder and October is nearing it's end, it's time to finish up all that last minute yardwork before we start getting frost on a nightly basis and then of course that first snow shows up at some point in November. Basically all I did this weekend was yard work and got in a couple of rides, of which one was quite enjoyable and the other was a little bit of a bother. Saturday I started by doing some driveway work, basically patching, leveling, and sealing. Once it warmed up I headed out for a 3 hour ride by way of Waukesha to Big Bend and then back home. I felt great and could have done a lot more but really had to get my leaves picked up and the lawn mowed. So after riding for 3 hours I ate a little bit and went right to working on the lawn for 2 hours, I had a ton of leaves to pick up and underneath all those leaves my lawn needed mowing. I only got the front done in those two hours, normally that's all it takes me to do the whole lawn. After the lawn work was done in front I moved in to the house, ate some dinner and settled down on the couch for a movie. Basically an uneventful day as I mentioned; eat, work on driveway, bike, eat, work on lawn, eat, watch TV. Sunday I was woken up early in the morning by the howling winds and realized that the 3.5 to 4 hour ride I had planned was just not going to happen for me. I just didn't feel like fighting sustained 25mph winds for that long, especially since they were gusting up to 35mph. I got up, realized we had no food in the house since Sunday is grocery shopping day and asked my wife to go get me the Deluxe breakfast at McDonalds which she happily obliged. Yeah, it wasn't the healthiest breakfast but I had a long day of yard work and a ride in front of me so I needed something with substance that would sit in my gut for a while. After eating I headed out and worked on picking up the leaves in my backyard which wasn't quite as bad as the front because the trees in back hadn't shed much of their leaves yet. I picked up as much as I could and then mowed that with the push mower for another 2 hours worth of yard work just like Saturday. After I finished that I ate some lunch, only a can of soup, and then headed out for a shortened 2 hour ride, not what I had planned but at this point of the year what's another hour or two of endurance pace riding? It's not going to hurt to cut it short right now. Basically the ride was a nice quick jaunt of 25-27mph with the tailwind and then a leg busting 15mph heading back home against the headwind. I was glad to be done and was cursing the winds for ruining what could have otherwise been a really nice October day. I did see a lot of rec cyclists and joggers on my route, I think everyone sensed that the nice days are starting to wind down so they were getting out in spite of the wind. After my ride I did some grocery shopping with my wife, ate some dinner and then hit the couch again for some relaxation. All in all it was a decent weekend, no frills, but sometimes that's a good thing, I like keeping things even keel.
Well, my work schedule is calling for a 4:50a.m. wakeup so it's time to go to bed, my beer review will come tomorrow, and after what will be a long day of work I may have to refresh my memory with another bottle before I start typing. Until next time.........

Just a Precursor

Well, I had a lot going on this weekend and am finally sitting down at the computer but unfortunately it's to do some work I forgot to do today while I was so busy. So I have to get that done now before tomorrow morning. I'll do a weekend re-cap tomorrow sometime, but for now here is a picture from my ride today, lots of leaves in Whitnall Park, I had to ride down the middle of the road to stay out of the leaf piles. Also, I'll do a review tomorrow of Leinie's Winter Seasonal beer, the "Fireside Nut Brown" English style Lager.



Whitnall

It's That Time

Fall colors are in full bloom or close to it, the air is getting crisp and for some of you the weekend bike rides are getting shorter. So once it's time to cut back on the cycling or move the training indoors when the snow starts flying, what are you going to do? I'll tell you....you should go on a brew tour and spend some time sampling some fine beers right here in the area, and I'm talking good beer, not a Miller tour. I shouldn't be so down on Miller, I started my beer drinking lifestyle sucking the top of an MGD bottle until I discovered the wealth of microbrews and wonderful imports that were out there. I was young and naive, I thought MGD was the best there was, and I'm not going to knock it now because I'll still take an MGD if it's offered, but the occasion is rare. Anyways, here are two in the Milwaukee area that I highly recommend, Lakefront Brewery offers a great tour, and the tour is actually a learning experience for those wanting to know the process in detail. Along with the tour you get a glass and of course you get to sample their selection of beer. There is some humor in the tour as well and for those that have been on it, you'll know what I mean. If you want to know what I'm talking about, then go on the tour!

Sprecher Brewery is also a good tour, but the tour itself is very basic and offers more information on the history of Sprecher than it does the detailed process of making the beer. The best part of the Sprecher tour is sitting in the indoor beer garden afterwards to sample the beers and then you get to move on to the gift shop. The gift shop has all of their normal beer selection along with most of their seasonal beers. The best part of the gift shop and something that I recommend you do, is to purchase a bottle or six of their Premium Reserve beers. It's about $20 a bottle but well worth the price, especially for the Russian Imperial Stout and the Bourbon barrel aged Pipers Scotch Ale. One bottle of the Russian Imperial and you are set for the night, it's an amazing beer and one that I need to stock up on again sometime fairly soon.

If you are looking to take a drive out of the city, then there are plenty of other brewerys around the state, too many to list here but a couple are Tyranena, New Glarus, Great Dane, Leinenkugels, Angelic Brewing, and Capital. If you are looking to get some food and sit down to eat and enjoy a few beers, then I'd recommend Delafield Brewhaus, Water Street Brewery, Rock Bottom, and Milwaukee Ale House. Delafield Brewhaus has a great sausage platter that you could pair with at least 2 of their 4 standard beers on tap, either the Pewaukee Porter or the Delafield Amber. Normally they have 3 to 5 more beers on tap in addition to the standards but those change often and are not listed on their web site.

Today is my birthday and I'm hoping to make it down to Sprecher maybe this weekend to get a couple of bottles at least, I think it would be a good idea for you all to get down there as well, or any of the other brewerys. Support your local brewery, even if it's Miller.

These girls love their beer, so should you....(sorry Lis)

All-Rounder??? Uh, No.....

If you haven’t read my previous post then go ahead and read that first and come back to this post….go ahead, I’ll give you time……ready then? Well now you know what this post will be about then. Basically I’m trying to figure out how I want to approach racing next year, although my racing will be minimal I’m obviously not just going to train haphazardly and not prepare as I should. I look at the calendar of races for the WCA and I wonder to myself, is it really worth trying to become as lean as I can be for racing a calendar of events in Wisconsin? We have 2 road races of note with any climbing in them, Baraboo and Denzer, and Baraboo to me is really a power climbing race, Denzer is a little bit more than that. The Baraboo RR hills are steep, but c’mon they aren’t all that long, Denzer is really the only race where a “climber” would have an advantage in any race in Wisconsin. Holy Hill in Superweek, I don’t think so. A power rider and good sprinter can handle Baraboo and Holy Hill, soooo, I can’t really see where being 6’1” and 160-some pounds would help me in any Wisco races, I think it’s better to play to the strengths of racing here. In my opinion, that strength would be sprinting as we have so many criteriums, and looking back at the results from this past season it was a lot of the same people winning the races over and over. I checked back to 2007, then 2006, and yes, it was the same guys winning. Guys that were power riders and really good sprinters because those are the abilities that are needed to win races here where almost all of our races are flat. There are races with opportunities, Evergreen maybe, only because that course is kind of messed up in that it goes through a winding section that’s about as wide as a foot path, then down a curving hill, then up a hill, and repeat. The skinny section and the subsequent downhill create some places to get away and then maintain the gap on the hill. GDVC has some opportunities as well because of the crosswinds usually, Elm Grove because of it’s dangerous turn before the finish, but a lot of the other races I can think of usually come down to a sprint. The State RR is tough but usually it’s a decent size group going up that hill to the finish, the long hill is a tough one but it’s maybe a third of a mile if you count the part that levels off at the top before it starts to go downhill again. Don’t get me wrong, there are some tough races in Wisconsin, but they are usually won by the strong men and the sprinters. So, how does that affect me? Well, the last two years I was really striving to get down to 170 to 171, but was accepting a racing weight of about 174 because I just couldn’t get much lower. I really had to starve myself to get down to 174 and it was especially hard this year. I think I’ve decided this year to just shoot for what I need to do in different terms, and that is to lower my body fat % to as low as I can go while building muscle and power to enable me to be a better sprinter. I’ve done some calculations and my guess-timate is that I can be about 180lbs and my body fat will be low but I won’t be starving myself to get lean and I also won’t have to stop doing yard work because I’m afraid my arms will get too big. I have a big upper frame, my shoulders are pretty wide and it doesn’t take much for me to build up some good size lats, shoulders and biceps. I’m not going to worry about that this year, I’ll do what I can to lower my body fat as low as I can go without sacrificing power and then I’ll be happy with that even if I can’t go up the hill at Denzer. I’ve been a better sprinter than climber the last two years so it makes no sense to kill myself to be 170 when I should just play to my strengths, although my strengths right now aren’t all that strong so to speak. Either way, I’ll do a lot more sprint specific stuff this year, work a lot in the weight room and then hope that whatever hill work I do will keep me with the group over the little bumps that I do have to go up. Denzer is probably off my calendar but Baraboo is still a possibility. The State RR is up in the air right now, but I’m not counting that off my list yet either because of my lack of climbing ability, maybe just pure strength will keep me with the group there. Right now it’s all a little premature to say because who knows what will come up. Last year I had a big work project come up that completely derailed my training, the same thing could happen in 2009 and I could end up getting fat on the couch again. Right now though, I have a plan, we’ll just have to see how that works out. Until next time…..

Thank Goodness That's Over

I'm glad to be home, I was getting too fat out in Florida eating all that delicious food that my company so graciously paid for, although they don't know the tally yet for my over-the-top consumption of said food. A little bit of Bahama Breeze, Tilted Kilt, Moxies, Smokey Bones, and Green Iguana all contributed to a weight gain of about 3.5 to 4lbs., yeah, I ate THAT much. Soooo, it's back to the "good" nutritional program now that I'm home and I'll be sure to watch my calorie consumption until the next holiday where I'm sure I'll eat a little too much again, but nothing like the 5 day bender I go on when I'm in Florida. I'm feeling a little under the weather today from being in the germ capsule that some people call an "airplane" and also from going in and out of air conditioning for 5 days, one minute it was 70 degrees then it was 90 degrees. A few days of that and my throat was hurting and headaches were pretty constant. As I mentioned in my previous post, no biking was possible but I did get in two walks and did a little jogging during the walks as well. Those two walks probably prevented me from hitting 5+ lbs of weight gain, at least I kept it below that. Basically that was my trip to Florida in a nutshell; hot temps, lots of air conditioning, lots of food, and a little exercise. Now that I'm home it's back to biking and taste testing a few more beers. Sunset is making cycling difficult as it will be tough to get out when the sun is already gone by 6:15 now-a-days, but I will make the attempt to ride for an hour after work with the light system and then maybe 30-60 minutes inside after that. I'll be doing that for the next few weeks in addition to longer rides on the weekends as the weather permits, basically if it's not raining then I'm riding outside. I'll also start weight training in a couple of weeks after work and then head home for the trainer rides. I'll do all that fun stuff through the beginning of December and then I'll start to ramp up my program. What is my program this year? Well, I'm just going with how I feel at the time, it's going to be an ebb and flow kind of thing.....something difficult to maintain as the weather gets colder and my motivation wains during the dark, winter months and then an unfolding and fervent desire to get out and ride as the white shit starts to dissipate in the early months of '09. I always have a basic plan, which then becomes a detailed plan as I start to get a feel for my fitness, and then it becomes meticulous preparation on an OCD level as the races near. Right now I'm in the embryonic stage, a beginning if you will, just riding, getting that bottom layer of the pyramid built and that will entail some weight work as well, building up the muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Riding and lifting, basic but key to my offseason workouts and I'll be doing that for a while until I feel I'm ready for the next stage. I'll tell you about the next stage some other time.

As I think about what my offseason workouts will entail I'm stuck in a bit of a quandary as to which direction I want to go, sort of like those old Dungeons & Dragons books where you could pick your next move and then turn to page 47 and find out that you just locked yourself in a room with death wraiths. Um, yeah, I was one of them, a RPG geek, but that's where I'm at right now with how I want to approach my season. What page do I pick? Go left down the wooded path, or take a right onto the old stone bridge, either way the hero usually ended up fighting something. Maybe it was only 5 goblins with great success, or it was an untimely death with 100 ogres. The best part of those books was being able to go back, turn the page to the other choice, re-live the adventure. In cycling, depending upon the path I take, it will be harder to turn the page once I get going down my path. What is this big conundrum you ask, nothing so big really, but both paths require a lot of work and going back after picking a path will be difficult. So, the choice is, do I put my eggs in the sprinting basket or the climbing basket (you thought I was choosing between mountain biking and road biking didn't you, maybe not)? It might not seem like a big choice but one of those choices will take a lot of work on my part and the other not so much, but both will be quite detailed in their preparations once I do decide. How do I decide, what difference will it make to my training, why bother making a choice? Well, this post is long enough, check back tomorrow to find out the answers to those questions and I'll have some good explanations. A quick teaser is that we all aren't Lance or Alberto, we all aren't great at both and we all aren't going to be riding the TDF any time soon, so in the races that we do around here (WCA), it's important to make a choice. That's it for now, until next time.........

Florida

A trip to Florida means business and no pleasure, although I do get pleasure in eating lots of wonderful seafood. Being in Florida through Sunday also means no biking, but I will be doing some pushups and situps in the room and also doing some daily jogging as long as it's not raining. Temps in the upper 80s and 50-60% chance of rain most days, typical Florida weather. More info on the training program to come next week and I'm thinking I'll sample some local brews and post a review or two next week, maybe even while I'm still in Florida.

For Your Pleasure....

....a couple of links to peruse while you have some downtime. My friend (and co-worker) Dave belongs to the Washington County Bicycle Club, you can visit their sites below and on my sidebar, some pretty good forums, pics, and if you live in the area there is some ride information as well.

http://washingtoncountybc.ning.com/

http://www.westbendtrails.org/wcbchome.html

Also, here is a site for race pictures for the Wisconsin and Illinois races, enjoy, you may see yourself -

http://peloton-pix.com


No outside riding today because of the rain, and no inside riding on the trainer because of boredom, I'm not ready to ride inside yet. I did do some yard work before the rain and then watched the Brewers and Packers lose, bummer of a weekend for Wisconsin sports as the Badgers lost yesterday as well.
Let's see, what else, I'm making progress but unfortunately not a lot of progress on losing weight after my summer of shame (no riding, lots of eating). Today's weekly measurements didn't do a lot to make me feel better about the riding I did this week, but I guess progress will be slow. It took me 3 months to get this fat and out of shape, I've only been back to riding for about 4 weeks or so. The weight is down to 194.5 from a high of about 210 at the end of August. Trust me, it was all fat, so now it's going to take a while to get rid of it. My weight last Sunday was 195.5 so it's disappointing that I only lost a pound this week, and I didn't lose anything off my waist measurements. The worst part is that I'm heading to Florida and will be there most of this week and all weekend so it will be hard not to eat all that great seafood, I will do my best though and will try to walk or jog when I get the chance. I was going to post a beer review tonight but felt so bad about my non-existent weight loss that I decided not to drink beer. Well, that's it for now, time to get some sleep.

Sunny Days

....well, until tomorrow anyways when it's supposed to rain. Today was sunny though, and I got to enjoy it with a lot of yard work and a 3 and a half hour ride. I am really sore now though and ready for bed, my legs hurt, my back hurts, and my arms...well, they don't hurt I guess. My legs got a good work out today as I did some driveway sealing and then used the push mower for my 1/2 acre lawn, that's a lot of walking for me. After mowing the lawn I went out and did my bike ride, so basically my legs got about 5 hours of continuous exercise, not too shabby. The rest of the evening was spent laying on the couch watching some TV and keeping the legs up, they really needed some rest and now hopefully the weather will hold out tomorrow morning so I can get in another ride before the rain comes. There is a 60% chance of rain and it's supposed to start about 9:00ish, and before that the temps will only be about 41-43 degrees so it will be tough to get in a morning ride. If the forecast calls for rain all day then I may go in to work to use the workout facilities, but we'll see, I dislike being there on a work day, I certainly don't want to have to go there on a day off. I don't want to ride the trainer already this Fall but I may have to just to get the blood flowing through the legs after today's ride to help in recovery. It's all up in the air right now and I'll just decide in the morning I guess.

Other than that, I just saw on Velonews that Vinokourov wants to come back again and ride for Astana next year, I think that's would be complete bullshit if they let him ride again. I hope the UCI goes to the CAS and appeals his one year suspension and pushes for the longer term, I really don't want to see him come back next year, he deserves to sit out at least a couple of years and really serve his punishment. I'd have a hard time believing that the ASO would allow Astana to ride the Tour next year if Vino is riding for them, having said that, I can't imagine that Contador would stick around on that team, he'd be smart to leave. Levi should leave as well and get on a team that's guaranteed a spot, a safe team if you will, just so we can see if he can really beat Alberto, only because I think Alberto's comments about Levi at the Vuelta were a crock of crap.
Well, that's my rant for now, more to come tomorrow, including a couple links that you all need to check out every once in a while. PLUS, another beer review!